1st Edition

Mountain Aesthetics in Early Modern Latin Literature

By William M. Barton Copyright 2017
    268 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    268 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    In the late Renaissance and Early Modern period, man’s relationship to nature changed dramatically. An important part of this change occurred in the way that beauty was perceived in the natural world and in the particular features which became privileged objects of aesthetic gratification. This study explores the shift in aesthetic attitude towards the mountain that took place between 1450 and 1750. Over the course of these 300 years the mountain transformed from a fearful and ugly place to one of beauty and splendor. Accepted scholarly opinion claims that this change took place in the vernacular literature of the early and mid-18th century. Based on previously unknown and unstudied material, this volume now contends that it took place earlier in the Latin literature of the late Renaissance and Early Modern period. The aesthetic attitude shift towards the mountain had its catalysts in two broad spheres: the development of an idea of ‘landscape’ in the geographical and artistic traditions of the 16th century on the one hand, and the increasing amount of scientific and theological investigation dedicated to the mountain on the other, reaching a pinnacle in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The new Latin evidence for the change in aesthetic attitude towards the mountain unearthed in the course of this study brings material to light which is relevant for the current philosophical debate in environmental aesthetics. The book’s concluding chapter shows how understanding the processes that produced the late Renaissance and Early Modern shift in aesthetic attitude towards the mountain can reveal important information about the modern aesthetic appreciation of nature. Alongside a standard bibliography of primary literature, this volume also offers an extended annotated bibliography of further Latin texts on the mountains from the Renaissance and Early Modern period. This critical bibliography is the first of its kind and constitutes an essential tool for further study in the field.

    Table of Contents

    List of Illustrations

    List of Abbreviations

    Acknowledgements

    Note on Neo-Latin Texts

    Introduction

    1. The Mountain in Latin: Literary Heritage

    Josias Simmler’s De Alpibus Commentarius (1574)

    The Mountain in Classical Literature

    The Mountain in Classical Literature: Concluding Remarks

    The Mountains of the Bible

    The Mountains of the Bible: Concluding Remarks

    2. Gaeographia, Prospectus, Pictura

    Gessner Frames the Mountain

    The Mountain in Chorography

    Geography’s Rebirth in Germania

    Prospectus and the Mountain in Text

    Early Landscape Art and the Mountain

    Latin and the Rise of the Landscape Genre

    Geography and Landscape Art come together

    Pliny Concludes: A View from Tuscany

    3. Theologia et Philosophia Naturalis

    The Disciplines and their Relationship

    Natural Philosophy, Mountains of the Mind and Aesthetics

    The Mountains and their Origins—l’état de question in 1561

    Mountains in Genesis and Berhardus Varenius

    A Smooth Primaeval Earth—Josephus Blancanus

    Aesthetics of Nature in Theology: Commentaries on Genesis

    The ‘Burnet Controversy’ and Mountain Aesthetics in Natural Philosophy

    The ‘World Makers’, John Woodward and Dissertationes de Montibus

    Scheuchzer’s Itinera Alpina and the Changed Mountain Aesthetic

    4. Aesthetics of Nature: The Case of the Mountain Mentality Change

    The Appreciation of Nature in Modern Philosophical Aesthetics—An Overview

    Current Positions in the Aesthetics of Nature

    The Natural Environmental Model

    The Case of the Mountain Mentality Change

    Methodological Considerations

    Theism and Positive Aesthetics

    The Role of Natural Science in Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature

    Landscape and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature

    Steno and Leonardo: the Tuscan Hills

    Conclusions

    Appendix

    Annotated Bibliography

    Preamble

    Annotated List

    Bibliography

    Index

    Biography

    William M. Barton is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Austria.